On Courage, Tenacity and Letting Go

You write about boldness, trust, and courage in creative work. What do these mean to you and where do you struggle?

I think the greatest struggle, and perhaps the one we all ultimately face, is having the courage and boldness to trust ourselves. We grow up taught that other people hold the authority to approve or disapprove of us and our creative expressions. Maybe this comes from the grading system in schools, I don’t know. But we quickly learn to create something, offer it to the appropriate “authority” and wait to see whether or not they validate it (and us). We hand over what should be our authority alone to say “yes, we have created what we intended, it is good and pure, and it matters because it is of us.” I grew up with this like everyone else and I am still climbing out of the system. I’ve spent years giving others a voice – individuals and corporations – and it has taken me a long time to put my own voice in my own creative work, and put it out there and let it stand for itself. So this is where I struggle most and what I find to ultimately be the most important. Trusting your own opinion more than anyone else’s. Not that you shouldn’t seek and heed feedback from trusted advisors; but ultimately, you have to give that approval to yourself and your work. And that is very challenging to do.

Talk a little bit about tenacity.

Tenacity is really just refusing to give up when it gets tough or you get slammed with self-doubt and fear. It’s a term of endurance and like any long-distance activity, it means there are going to be times when you stop and rest, but when you’re done resting you get up and continue. It’s really a matter of not giving yourself the option to not finishing what you started out to do. People need a motivation that means something to them in order to make that kind of commitment. As a writer, it’s the writing process and the relationships with characters that are my rewards. It’s knowing when I start out that the characters and story are going to change me as much as it will change them. So there is this wonderful, rich, fertile soil that stories rise up from and all this activity and effort and growth happening in the writer and characters underneath the soil, if you will. I love that. I love knowing that when you trust your characters it’s going to pay off. I have spent the last two years on a feature drama script, and the year prior to that on a novel – and I can unequivocally say that I am bolder, stronger, and more willing to step up to my dreams today because of having spent the last three years in the presence of amazingly tenacious and vulnerable characters. When you think about it, tenacity is really the core requirement for a protagonist and antagonist. Without that the conflict and tension disappears. The same is true for our lives.

What’s the difference between quitting and letting go?

Quitting comes from a place of defeat. Letting go comes from a place of power. I’m not playing on words. The result of either one is cessation. But the intention is entirely different. When you quit it’s because of fear or exhaustion – either way, you’re not coming from a place of empowerment. When you let go of something, it’s life-giving. It releases you from what has inhibited you, what has held you under water, and the result is that your spirit bounces back up to the surface and you breathe. And sometimes breathing is more important than anything else you could do. Letting go involves trust. Trust in the Universe, trust in yourself. It’s a result of growth. Either we outgrow our dreams and desires or they outgrow us; either way, letting go opens the doors to possibilities. And that’s where you want to be. Open, breathing, relaxed, trusting. That’s when the Universe can give you more than you ever imagined in far more aligned ways than you could orchestrate. Ultimately, when you let go, you do so with faith that no matter what happens, you’re going to be okay.